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First time writing here, I have already read and learn a lot reading this forum!

I open a new topic since searching the forum I find always comparison btw digital pianos (Yamaha, Kawai, Roland at most) or btw VST (Ivory, Galaxy, TruePiano...), but apart from some comments I never found a dedicated thread to compare both DP and VST.

After much research I'm proud owner of a Clavinova CLP 340. IMHO good value for money since will be used by my wife for personal use and sometimes for her work (she teach classic dance).

But having had the opportunity to try the new Clavinova series clp 440 I was thinking about the most important changes btw 340 and 440: the new sound engine RGE vs the old AWM (ok there are also String Resonance, Smooth Release, Damper Resonance, 256 polyphony).

So I have few questions to share:

- The most recent VST pianos are "superior" or at least equivalent respect Clavinova RGE and in fact produce more realistic results? If so I can think to improve in the future my Clavinova by using it as a master keyboard to control a external VST, using also his speakers as monitors (not to mention a good headphone). This can be a cost effective solution in the future to "upgrade" our piano if we want so, having also equivalent sound quality respect the new Clavinova series.

- The clp340 4 dynamic levels AWM sound engine its so bad respect the most advanced 20 levels Ivory II or virtual model such as Pianoteq? My doubt come since I read many statement RGE is better than AWM is much about a personal feeling .

Obviously my ideas don't consider the beauty to have an all-in-one solution with a beautiful cabinet to show in the living room such as the Clavinova alone, but I'm interested to evaluate all the opportunities before a decision is made.

Yes, many of the VSTs (piano libraries) perform better than the pianos by themselves. There are some really poor piano libraries. But the good ones outperform even the most expensive digital pianos.[quote]The most recent VST pianos are "superior" or at least equivalent respect Clavinova RGE and in fact produce more realistic results?

I'm not thinking to trash away my 340 only since has not the latest Yamaha sound engine :), but considering if with a small investment I can access to a really superior one.

From another point of view, for a $1500 investment (that's mine and as I read the average for many first DP buyers) not considering the aesthetic result you achieve a better result in term of sound investing in a DP or VST (adding costs of master keyboard + pc + sw + headphone)?

You might think it is small but by the time you get finished with additional items you may need (faster computer, faster harddrive, external audio device, external speakers) you may find that you have invested quite a tidy sum.

Of course, after that initial investment then subsequent software products do become quite a small additional investment.

I have been down that road and I would suggest you try to utilize the DP you have and stay clear of searching for the "dream sound".

At least learn to play to at least an intermediate level before dreaming of better sounds.

I believe you will find that a VST such as the Galaxy Vintage D has vastly superior sound quality compared to your CLP 340 or any newer Yamaha digital piano. Depending on what spare equipment you already have (a computer, perhaps an A/V receiver) it would cost you less than $200 to add the Vintage D and play it through the CLP-340 speakers. (The Vintage D is less demanding than Ivory II on computer capabilities if you are using an older spare computer.) If you have no spare equipment than you must factor in that additional cost.

Quote:

Obviously my ideas don't consider the beauty to have an all-in-one solution with a beautiful cabinet to show in the living room such as the Clavinova alone, but I'm interested to evaluate all the opportunities before a decision is made.

If you are concerned that additional equipment will detract from the appearance of your all-in-one Clavinova use a small computer like a Mac-Mini or perhaps an iMac if you find that attractive. You don't even need to locate the equipment close to the piano. You only need a thin USB cable for MIDI and a stereo analog audio cable to return the audio to your piano. In that case any computer can be concealed.

I agree with the other posters so far. There are almost no distinguishable differences between AWM and RGE. I would never consider upgrading from one to the other unless it involved no outlay of money whatsoever. There is, however, an exceptionally large difference between RGE and a high quality VST. It can be a little bit of a hassle setting it up, but in my experience it doesn't cost a ton and is very much worth it.

Now, I'm also sympathetic to dmd's sentiment: the perfect sound is oh so elusive. Once you find out how much better VST's are, it is tempting to buy better speakers, and audio interfaces, and room treatment, and more VST's, etc. There are diminishing returns. The first VST is light years better than your piano. After that, each dollar will get you less and less. You will bankrupt yourself before you reproduce the effect of a concert quality acoustic piano. My suggestion is to upgrade to Vintage D, as was suggested. Get a good set of open-style headphones, and be happy.

I have not the "perfect sound" virus, I'm simply thinking about DP business and what's the best investment. I like the idea of VST since DP are such a closed system, where the new generation pack new improvements in the audio engine that you can access only buying also the new hardware. VST are free from that restriction and you can evolve separately the different parts of your digital piano.

I have from you the confirmation VST such as Galaxy are better than a high-end DP such as Clavinova CLP 440 I was evaluating (I know, its all your feeling and maybe you are VST fanatic :)), but sure you are AL LOT more expert than me). No pbm for that, I'm still happy with my 340 since as I said its a really good out of the box solution and my wife enjoy playing it.

But I have the opportunity to try, since I have a good laptop (i5 dual core 2.5 Ghz, 8GB RAM), can install a demo version (I found Pianoteq have a working trial, Galaxy don't provide one) and just connect with my Clavinova. Already installed ASIO4ALL, I have a TO HOST USB cable, just need a decent headphone (I lack the audio cable) and will see. I know modeled pianos are not at the same level of best sampled, but since as I read the difference its not so big I think will be anyway superior to our 340.

If both of us will recognize such a big difference (maybe don't depending from our listening ability and her piano ability) we have the opportunity in the future for a cheap upgrade: just a Mac mini (just checked I can find used a good configuration for $650 near my city) and the sw. And also if I want to start playing (she loves the idea, I just think I haven't the time the patience and the skills to learn) I know which configuration its the best

But I have the opportunity to try, since I have a good laptop (i5 dual core 2.5 Ghz, 8GB RAM), can install a demo version (I found Pianoteq have a working trial, Galaxy don't provide one) ...

Given the choice between Yamaha's built-in sampling and Pianoteq, I'd take the Yamaha all day, every day. Pianoteq is not the Vintage D or Ivory II. Pianoteq is not the sound of a real piano. It's another electronic instrument, IMO.

I have tried Pianoteq 4 and I thought that was the latest. I would still take my CVP-409GP over it any day. Incidentally, when I posted some unidentified MIDI examples using the CVP-409GP, Ivory II C7, and Alicia's Keys C3 I remember several people preferred the CVP. (However, I would take the Ivory II C7 for playing live.) When you compare MIDI's of CVP vs sampled Yamaha's, the CVP doesn't do too bad. But this is because (IMO) the competition is weak for sampled Yamaha's. When you compare it against the Vintage D and Ivory II Steinways it's no contest.

I just looked and saw the Bluthner Model 1 add-on. I will have to try that.

Yeah, I think you are right, Macy. The competition isn't that great for sampled Yamaha VST's for some reason. That CVP did sound pretty good, but it's no Vintage D.

I have been testing out the most recent PianoTeq lately and I definitely feel that the Bluthner is by far their best effort to date. When compared with their previous pianos (3.6) it's an order of magnitude better. Unfortunately they still have some ways to go before they can fool my ears into thinking it's a piano or making a really pleasing sound.

Ok I already know Pianoteq it's not at the same level respect Vintage D or Ivory II. The problem is none of the latter offer a trial version. Ivory offer a remote test session, but with latency up to 200ms that I think it's non usable.

I'm confused to read that the latest Bluthner Pianoteq it's better. Having downloaded latest Pianoeq trial it come out of the box with Grand Piano D4, that is modeled against Steinway D the same as Vintage D is. Bluthner it's simply another piano model, doesn't change the underlying sound engine as I know. So how can be "better"? It's equivalent to say that Bluthner piano it's better than Steinway D piano, maybe (I really don't know!), but I think can be just a personal opinion. Or I just don't catch the point?

I just don't want to invest for what it's a test, so want to understand: in your opinion Pianoteq grand piano D4 might be better of the sampled piano/AWM sound engine of the old Clavinova?

Hi, I am a new convert to Pianoteq, afters years of resisting to it. I just preferred the big, rich, full sound in the sound probes of the Galaxies e.g. on Purgatorycreek. I played most of the time their VintageD, Beosendorfer, made some betatests even for the Giant and thought that is much better than what I could hear recorded with DPs. (But I still felt a huge difference to my 100 years old acoustic with very rich sound, in a good playing condition in favor of the the acoustic.)

With Pianoteq V2 and V3 I could feel the playability bonus, but this seemed just not enough as a compensation for the meager, plasticly, synthesised sound.

As I eagerly made some short hearing test with Pianoteq4 early this year, it sounded not that rich, as my VintageD and I abandoned it promptly disappointed.

But at last I bought PT4 Stage - and surprisingly it was a very exciting experience, a revelation! After playing it some one to two minutes, you forget about the imperfections of acoustic simulation, and you are like growing in in the rich details, responsiveness, consistency of the sound of the modelled instruments. It is like getting a REAL instrument, it is not a very big Grand, what you get, but an INSTRUMENT on its own. Playability of Pianoteq is superb, and interestingly it is a much more important feature, as I previously supposed.

With Sampled pianos I had it all the time just the opposite way: the initially overwhelming rich sound narrowed and got more flat an tiring over time when playing them. I found myself to seek and tweak the parameters, tuning, buying gears to get something better.

What is the explanation for these differences? With sampled instruments there are possibly the subtle inconsistencies between separate recorded, layered keys (recording to different times with slightly differing conditions), perhaps that the sound goes through a whole recording process as through a narrow pipeline and our whole perceptions let themselves not easily fool by these tricks, perhaps the switching between different distinct velocity layers is perceptible for our unconscious mind, I don't now it exactly, but the difference is a huge one and it seemes a relatively common one among professional Pianoteq users (which I am not).I'll analyse this phenomenon further, because these are very intriguing questions to me.

Now I have upgraded Pianoteq to the Standard Version and bought the Bluethner as well. (I found the Bluethner good and inspiring, but qualitatively not much over the builtin D4.)

And over all, Pianoteq is a nice piece of SW, very intuitive, small, full of practical features and instruments - and costed about one fifth of that I spent in sum on different sampled pianos previously - not to speak about a decent DP which does cost >2000$.

There are some extra fields, where modelled instruments excel, like tuning and temperaments (because this can be implemented with modelling very exactly perhaps). They have a much bigger potential to improve too. Initial investition for a SW instrument is OK, if future improvements will be made available for a modest upgrade fee.

It is like getting a REAL instrument, it is not a very big Grand, what you get, but an INSTRUMENT on its own. Playability of Pianoteq is superb, and interestingly it is a much more important feature, as I previously supposed.

What you say its consistent with other opinions I read. Pianoteq appear to have a sound that it's not so equivalent to acoustic piano respect Ivory II or Vintage D, but appear to be more "piano" than others, since can reproduce the full piano dynamics and expressiveness.

I'm absolutely not and expert that can judge, so I only report the average "consensus" of you experts.

I still don't understand if I can expect a better sound respect my CLP 340, but: I just read the DPBSD project thread with the tests of CLP 330, CLP 440, Pianoteq 3.6.From that review Pianoteq appear to be superior respect 330 and also to 440.

I'm not really interested to have the true perfect piano, so I don't mind if Pianoteq its inferior to Vintage D or Ivory II, the most important thing its that can be superior respect mine 340, and don't cost me so much money and time in term of software, HDD space and performance, hw/sw configuration, etc.

I think we will try a comparison btw my 340 and Pianoteq this week, if we actually notice the difference and we like it that mean in the future we have a fast way to update our piano when we want to do so.

If we don't that mean we have a test to test our listening ability in the future . If we notice and we don't like it can be also better: we are happy with our 340!

I'm confused to read that the latest Bluthner Pianoteq it's better. Having downloaded latest Pianoeq trial it come out of the box with Grand Piano D4, that is modeled against Steinway D the same as Vintage D is. Bluthner it's simply another piano model, doesn't change the underlying sound engine as I know. So how can be "better"? It's equivalent to say that Bluthner piano it's better than Steinway D piano, maybe (I really don't know!), but I think can be just a personal opinion. Or I just don't catch the point?

No, you can't tweak D4 to make it into Bluthner. They are separate instruments. It is a common misconception that the various PT pianos are tweaks of the same modelling engine. Certainly there is shared code, but the underlying engine for each piano is different, with many parameters set differently from one to the other that are not accessible to even the pro version user. There's a lot of complexity behind the scenes.

The D4 is the second best PT piano in my opinion. PianoTeq tends to suffer from not quite believable attacks and a metallic taste in the decay. For the D4 it sounds like they have tried really hard to mitigate these problems. They pretty much killed the metal in the decay, but to me it sounds muffled. Pretty hard to get just right. The hammers also sound very soft to me, but that's a parameter you can tweak, so it may be solvable in the Standard and Pro versions. The Bluthner decay is nothing special...on par with the D4, but the attack on it is a ping that is as realistic as I have ever heard from PT.

By the way, while we are on the subject of PT, I'll just say one more thing about version 4: The biggest improvement in version 4 over the previous versions is their reverb algorithm. Previously, for whatever reason, PT reverb sounded like putting the piano in a tin can and stuffing wet cotton in your ears. Version 4 uses something akin to convolution that is much more palatable. I still don't find it perfect, but I'm not sure whether that's the reverb or the actual tone that's bothering me. But it's a whole different game from what it was before. On the other hand, reverb in sampled VST's sound so sweet it's unbelievable. Like, literally unbelievable at times--you never find rooms in real life with that pleasing of reverb.

Originally Posted By: david445

I just don't want to invest for what it's a test, so want to understand: in your opinion Pianoteq grand piano D4 might be better of the sampled piano/AWM sound engine of the old Clavinova?

I haven't compared them side by side, but I have listened to both and I would give the Clavinova the edge. Even the best of PianoTeq is still distinctly artificial, and that's what you call the Clavinova's sound at its worst.

I'm sympathetic to your desire to demo a product before trying it. In sampled pianos you have only TruePianos and Pianissimo that provide demo versions, and they are both distinctly subpar within this class. Buying Vintage D is a leap of faith, but it's your cheapest and best option and I have yet to hear someone regret the purchase. After that, if you decide you are a sampled piano fanatic you can buy other, more expensive pianos. People have their favorites, but no piano is unambiguously better than Vintage D and it's not too much money.

I just don't want to invest for what it's a test, so want to understand: in your opinion Pianoteq grand piano D4 might be better of the sampled piano/AWM sound engine of the old Clavinova?

I haven't compared them side by side, but I have listened to both and I would give the Clavinova the edge. Even the best of PianoTeq is still distinctly artificial, and that's what you call the Clavinova's sound at its worst.

People have their favorites, but no piano is unambiguously better than Vintage D and it's not too much money.

Ok I will try PT and have my opinion. Since there are 4 years of advancement and a different approach btw Clavinova 300 series and PT4 I'm curious to know the difference.

After that if we think worth the effort sure $170 it's not too much for a wonderful piano such as Vintage D. I know it's not fear to use only PT do judge if worth the effort for a VST piano, but at least we will understand if we like to use a different and virtual piano and play with it.

Hi, new guy here. And I really just wanted to register to reply to this post. I assume I'll be doing more than that now that I'm registered.. I've read through these forums for a while, but this is the first post that I feel I needed to reply to.

Anyway, like the OP I too have the CLP-340. I've been interested by VST pianos for some time and due to this post I gave Pianoteq a try. This is my first VST ever.

I came from the test with one conclusion, I freakin like the sound of a digital piano. To my ears, Pianoteq sounded just Iike an acoustic piano, it had all the nuances and tone that one would expect from a real piano... At least to my untrained ears. But there is no comparison here, it's like apples and oranges. Not saying the Clavinova sounds bad, but it definitely is not an acoustic tone.... But, I like it and prefer it over the acoustic tone from Pianoteq.

It's not subtle either. The difference is obvious to anyone. But to me, the sound of my Clav is what I prefer. It seems tight and focused, I guess that's what a digital piano sounds like.

Now as a comparison to,the real thing. My music store has a Yamaha C1, as well as a few older Yamaha grands. But I simply do not care for them. They're nice and all, huge tone, huge sound, powerful, easy to play.... But when I'm there, I find myself enjoying the tone and playability of the Yamaha CVP505 so much better.

So my point, just because it's the real thing, doesn't make it better. I'll be playing the CLP340 no matter how realistic the latest VST is.

I've been using Pianoteq 4 with my CLP130 and have found that Pianoteq offers a much larger range of expression that I can't achieve on my CLP alone. The big difference I think has to do with correlation between velocity levels and samples.

The clavinova has a limited number of sample levels so you try to play very soft to medium soft you are only going to have maybe 1 to 2 different results and the same thing for loud to louder. Pianoteq outputs a larger range of sounds correlating to velocity levels (I think I can get maybe 100 - 150 or so, kind of hard to tell) to play with so you can play soft, really soft, even more soft. For this reason alone I find it is a much more satisfying experience.

Does it sound like a real piano? No, its not there yet, but on the other hand it feels more like I'm performing a real instrument which provides a much larger range of expression.